Sea Control - Sea Control 381 - How to Win Friends & Influence Shipbuilding with Eric Hovey

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

Link:How to Win Friends and Influence Shipbuilding. Marine Corps modernization and the amphibious Navy, by Maj Eric S. Hovey, Marine Corps Gazette, June 2022.   

Hey folks, it's Jared. My guest today is Eric Hovey, and we're going to be discussing his article on amphibious shipbuilding. This episode was edited and produced by Nathan Miller. I'd like to pause here to highlight our local chapters, whether you're in South Korea, Egypt, Singapore, France, New York, India, or the Caribbean. Chances are there's a SimSec local chapter near you. You can find a full listing of local chapters and contact information on our website at simsec.org. So if you're interested, please reach out. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec podcast network, the Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pile of Iron Brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts.

And with that, Kimber's Men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Technology. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guest today is Eric Covey. He's the author of a piece published in the Marine Corps Gazette entitled How to Win Friends and Influence Shipbuilding, Marine Corps Modernization, and the Amphibious Navy. So, Eric, welcome. Would you mind telling the audience a little bit more about your background? Sure. And good morning from D.C. and thanks for having me on the podcast this morning.

So as far as my background, I'm originally an intel officer, but I've also had a lot of different acquisitions billets. And so most recently, I was actually the liaison officer to PMS 317, which is the Amphibious Assault and Connectors Program Office. That's at Naval Sea Systems Command or NAVSEA, which is in Washington Yard. And based off of those experiences and then also just what's been being pushed out in the past few years with respect to Komenon Berger's force design. That's basically what inspired me to write the article. Well, thank you again for coming on. So to timestamp this for the listeners, we are recording Saturday, August 6th. So if something dramatic happens in the world of amphibious shipbuilding between now and then, that's why we're not discussing it here. And as a reminder to listeners, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institutions with which we might be otherwise associated.

Naval Sea Systems Command, NAVSEA, is Navy Command. You were stationed there as Marine Liaison. What role do Marines play at NAVSEA? And maybe you could use this as an opportunity to speak about what role Marines play in shipbuilding more generally. Sure, absolutely. To the first part of your question, as far as the role that Marines play, specifically, there's a Marine liaison element that's at NAVSEA, and they do just that. There are liaisons between the Naval Sea Systems Command and all of its subordinate program offices, and then back to the Marine Corps, both at the headquarters elements and then also the fleet. So really, the Marines that are at the Marine Liaison Element exist to act as brokers of information.

When I was there, there was approximately six to eight active duty and retired Marines that composed the Liaison Element. The billet is traditionally headed by a Marine 06. Usually, it's either a ground or an air acquisitions officer. But unfortunately, it was Gap line was there. And essentially, the three majors that were there, myself included, we covered down on a lot of the different program offices that had amphibious program elements. So for me, I was mostly at 317. That's the program office that controls LCAC, LCU, and then also is working on the light amphibious warship. But there was also another major who worked with PMS-325.

That includes some of the auxiliary logistics ships, as well as the next generation logistics ship, NGLS, and then also PMS-385, which has some of the other logistics ships, like the Expeditionary Fast Transport, EPF, and then Expeditionary Seabase, ESBs. That was kind of the role of the Marine Liaison Element, broadly. And then what role do Marines play in amphibious shipbuilding more generally? You are the, quote, unquote, customer of that shipping, if you will. And when I say you, I use the Royal U as in the Marine Corps. Is it sanity checking the system there? Is it ensuring compatibility? As far as our role, a lot of times it's, one, it's just being boots on the ground within our specific program offices.

So with 317, for example, anytime there was an issue that came up or some sort of RFI from, you know, one of the different program managers and they'd say, hey, you know, who do I need to talk to about, you know, the weight requirements for bow ramps or something? Then as a liaison, your job is to go out, find the appropriate entity within the larger Marine Corps infrastructure and essentially just marry people up. So it's very eye opening because Naval Sea Systems Command is so large that you show up and you recognize the first thing you have to do is try and figure out how that organization exists. So there's a lot of OGT that goes into it. And frankly, that was one of the other reasons why I wanted to put an article together was because it was chronicling a lot of the experiences of seeing, OK, how do we actually build a ship? And you realize very quickly that it's massively complicated. And that's why there's entire career fields devoted to specific pieces. And the fact that, you know, in the acquisitions world, procurement dollars for shipping are special. And it's five-year money as opposed to any other program, which is three-year procurement money, because the time horizons are just so long.

So it's very complex. The article isn't just about amphibious shipping, but that shipping view through the lens of force design 2030. So what does Force Design 2030 call for with regards to quantity and types of amphibious shipping? There's a quote from General Berger that talks a little bit about this in the 2019 Commandant's Planning Guidance. Specifically, he says, we must continue to seek the affordable and the plentiful at the expense of the exquisite and few when conceiving of the future amphibious portion of the fleet. in layman's terms what i think that general burger was trying to say is that the marine corps needs greater and more diverse quantities of amphibious ships and and why that's important is because you know when you look at the traditional breakout of a three-ship mu

so you have a big deck an lhd or an lha and then two little decks so your lpd class ships and your lsds i think some people interpreted the commandant's remarks as saying hey we don't need those traditional amphib ships. We need to get other kinds. And really what force design talks about and what the Marine Corps is tacking towards is maintaining the traditional mu ships that we have. We still want those. We still need those because they bring unique capabilities to the force, especially when you talk about joint forceful entry options. But we also need to have different types, smaller, more risk-worthy platforms to do the types of expeditionary advanced basing operations that the Marine Corps is building towards, or EABO. And the reason that's

driving that is because when you look, especially in the Indo-PACOM theater, our adversary's capabilities with respect to ISR and long-range fires make it prohibitively difficult to just rely strictly on the traditional amphib ships that we have. So we need more and greater types of amphib ships. What are some of the challenges the Marines face in procuring what they believe to be the necessary mix in number of the amphibious platforms? When I think of the two main challenges that come up, first is simply the budgetary aspect. So ships are expensive. And at the end of the day, there's not just the Marine Corps' equities that are concerned,

but you have the Navy, and they have their other programs. There's naval aircraft carriers. There's also the Columbia program, which is the Navy's top acquisition program. And it's critically important because from terms of strategic deterrence, the Columbia program's role in terms of the nuclear triad is very important for national security. At the end of the day, the country only has so much money that it can afford to spend on defense. We also have the Space Force, which is brand new, and that's doing a lot of exciting things. And so when all the different branches of the military have to modernize, have to meet the chain of threats, that's all expensive. And so at the end of the day, there's only so much money that can really go around.

So that, I would say, is one of the biggest challenges that the Navy and the Marine Corps face with respect to amphibious shipping. How many different entities in the Navy and Marine Corps influence amphibious shipbuilding and what are their respective roles? Simply put, there's quite a few different ones. Obviously, from my background as a Marine officer, I'm more comfortable talking in depth about the Marine ones. But I was also able to talk with a lot of the leadership that I had at 317 who were very knowledgeable, and they helped me understand better what some of the different Navy equities are. Because ships are Navy programs, I think it's important to start with them first. And so when you look at amphibious shipping programs, the first one that jumps out is N95.

And N95 on the OPNAV staff is formally known as the Expeditionary Warfare Branch. It's interesting for two reasons, really. First is that because of an NDA that was passed several years ago, it's congressionally mandated that the OPNAV N95 is headed by a Marine Corps general. So currently, that's Brigadier General Odom. And he's, for one, just awesome, very knowledgeable. And when he's talked about his experiences at N95, he's referred to himself as the Green Admiral. And it's kind of noteworthy because, you know, you don't really see a lot of Marine general officers on the Navy staff. But he's there to, you know, really advocate and bring the Marine Corps experience to the amphibious branch of the CNO staff.

And what they do is they articulate requirements and funding for all the different amphibious programs for the Navy and Marine Corps amphibious ships. Another important entity is the N81, and that's the Navy's assessments division. So when you think about modeling and simulation and then just overall assessments of programs, they're the ones who do all that number crunching for Navy programs. And why that's important is because, you know, if the Navy is looking to do comparisons and say, all right, if we're going to spend X amount of dollars on this amphibious ship and we're going to take, you know, Y amount of dollars from these other programs, what are the tradeoffs associated with that? What are, you know, what are the pros and cons? And essentially they're checking the math and coming up with the studies to make sure that the programs are justified appropriately. Next, you have the Navy's Programming Division, which is the N80, and they prepare the Navy's Program Objective Memorandum, or POM, which is the formal recommendation that the CNO submits

to the Secretary of the Navy, and which goes to Congress, and it's basically the budget. That's important because dollars are essentially the lifeblood of any program, and as I stated before, ships are very expensive, so when you start looking at where you're going to put dollars to what capabilities. The N80 as well is very important. And it gets to be a little bit of a churn and complicated because you have N95 and they're coming up with their recommendations for amphibious programs. But then you also have other warfare branches. So you have the N96, which is surface warfare, N97 for undersea warfare, and all those different organizations come up with what they think is important. So you have them submitting what their recommendations

are, and then you also have the N9I, which is the Warfare Integration Directorate. And they're essentially corralling all those different requirements and funding proposals from the different organizations and working with NAD to come up with a comprehensive message for the budget. So there's a lot of churn for all of that. And thankfully, at NAVSEA, I was insulated for most of it. But you see, ultimately, what comes out of that process, because the requirements and funding piece, that goes over to the Naval Sea Systems Command, which is, they're charged with all the acquisitions work. And NAVSEA is noteworthy because of the Navy's five systems Command, six if you count MARC or Syscom, they're the largest. And they have nearly a $30 billion

budget every year and approximately 80,000 employees spread throughout the country. And underneath of NAVSEA, there's different program executive offices. And so for amphibious ships, PEO ships headed by Admiral Anderson, they're the ones that actually do the acquisitions programs for amphibious ships. And then another Navy actor is the DAZN ships, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and they advise the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for research development acquisition on different issues and insights revolving surface ship programs. Oh, and also, PEO ships has a dual reporting chain, so they go not just to NAVSEA, but they also have to report to the ASN RDA. It's a bit of a complicated ecosystem, as you can imagine.

I mean, we haven't really even touched on the Marine Corps piece of that. So can you tell me a little bit about the Marine Corps side as well? Yeah, absolutely. The Marine Corps side, kind of first and foremost, from a requirement standpoint, has the Combat Development and Integration Deputy Commandant, CD&I. Right now, that's headed by a Marine Corps three-star general, General Heckle. CD&I's role is essentially to do all the formal requirements for any Marine Corps program. And that ties into the larger J-6 process, which is how all the services do formal requirements. But basically, he's charged by the Commandant General Berger to look at what General Berger's

guidance is in terms of where he sees the Marine Corps going, and then translate that into the specific needs that the force has. What are the systems, the capabilities that we need to be able to do our mission? Within CD&I, there's different divisions. So some are more focused on ground systems. Some are more focused on aviation or C2. For amphibs, you have MEXWID, which is the Marine Expeditionary Warfare Integration Division. And they were the ones who I worked with mostly, just great groups of Marines, retired sailors as well, civilian contractors. And they basically take the requirements that the Marine Corps has from its own wargaming modeling and simulation and then help push those over to NAVSEA so that we ensure that the Navy, because the Navy owns the AMFID programs, is building the programs to not just what the Navy needs, but also what the Marine Corps customers need for their mission. So it's always a bit of a balancing act. And within CDNI, though, there's also two other organizations that are noteworthy, and that's the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab.

And the Warfighting Lab is headed by Brigadier General Ellison, and they do a lot of the experimentation to see what's in the realm of the possible for the Marine Corps. And, for example, there's a stern landing vessel initiative where McWill was able to get a contract for a civilian ship and essentially lease it out so you can explore what's in the realm of the possible for doing some of our EABO operations and figure out what works and what doesn't. And that can help reduce program risk as we look at what do we actually want to buy in the future. Because if you're able to do that, experimentation helps work out some of the kinks. And what's neat about McWill, too, is that the commandant in charge of McWill is also dual-hatted as the vice chief of naval research for ONR. So there's a direct linkage between Navy ONR and then the research that's going on there as the principal technology developer for the Navy Marine Corps and then what McWill is doing. And then the other group is the Operations Analysis Directorate, or OAD. And for the Navy folks, the easiest way to think of OAD is as the equivalent, the Marine Corps equivalent to the OpNav N81.

So they do a lot of operations research, analytical support. And it's a very smart group of people. Just for any Jeopardy fans, if you saw the college tournament, there was a professor from Naval Postgraduate School, Dr. Sam Buttrey, and he was the grand champion. But he's also on the Navy post-grad college that does all the research development. So OAD grads who come out of that program and go to work in Quantico, that's the kind of milieu that you have. So it's some very sharp Marines and sailors working in those programs. Thanks. And for the listeners, if you want to read a little bit more about the Marine Corps heritage where it relates to testing of systems before fielding them, I would recommend first to fight. I can't remember if Krulak wrote that himself, but there's the whole story in there.

Victor Krulak is a major developing Amtrak. And I don't know if it was the landing boats or not. I do remember the Amtrak specifically, though, prior to World War Two and very specifically a story about like leaving Admiral King on a beach on a reef somewhere in his whites. He had to wade ashore. So go check that book out. I'll put it in the show notes. But I remember reading it while I was at Marine Corps University and laughing as I thought about Admiral King, who has a very specific reputation temper-wise, having to wade ashore in his whites. Eric, the last question I had for you was which external stakeholders, so outside the Marine Corps and Navy, especially, impact shipbuilding and how? From my experience, there's three main stakeholders that impacted shipbuilding. And the first was within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. It was called OSD-CAPE. And CAPE stands for Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation. I honestly, I'd never heard of CAPE before I ended up working at NAVSEA.

So I just, I didn't really know it was eye-opening for me. But essentially, they're charged with doing independent and objective analysis of DOD programs to make sure that the money that the DOD spends, you know, for any branch of the military is getting the best bang for the buck for the American taxpayer. And so from a functional standpoint, I would compare them as comparable to the rules that N81 plays for the Navy and OAD plays for the Marine Corps, but they're essentially fact-checking their work. If the Marine Corps and the Navy come up with, you know, a new ship and they say, hey, this meets all our goals and, you know, we think it's going to cost this amount of money and here's

our studies to back it up. OSD Cape is the one who comes in and checks all those data analysis and evaluations and said, okay, yeah, this makes sense. Or they say, no, actually, you're not factoring in these other variables, and you need to go back and redo your homework. Especially when it comes to new programs, OSD CAPE has a very important role. You know, the Navy and Marine Corps, by extension, have to make sure that our numbers and our analysis matches up and can get past whatever CAPE's thresholds are. Second would be Congress. At the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings for any budget.

When the Navy and Marine Corps submit their POM through the Secretary of the Navy, And ultimately, Congress is the one who has to look at that budget and say it makes sense or it doesn't and fund things appropriately. So I think that's why both services invest a lot of time and effort into communicating with Congress and making sure that the priorities are clear. And then ultimately, Congress is the one who has to decide based on not just what's good for national defense, but oftentimes what the needs of their constituents are and desire for having jobs in the industry within their states, what they're willing to fund and what they're not willing to fund. Congress is important for the money piece. And then last but certainly not least is industry themselves. So at the end of the day, it's not really the NAVSEA itself that's charged with building the ships. They're the ones who manage the acquisitions process, but that's in concert with private industry and the different shipyards who construct the ships.

And broadly speaking, from various articles and studies, the state of the U.S. commercial shipping industry has declined since World War II. so at the end of the day we have less capacity than we had before and why that matters is because when you want to build new ships there's a money piece obviously but there's also the capacity the shipyards themselves so even if you want to surge shipbuilding if you don't have the capacity it's not necessarily possible that you can just throw money at the profit the problem and get more ships like you're you're limited by what private industry can actually have and and that includes also not just the facilities themselves but the skilled workers that have to build the ships themselves and like how many of them are there and do they have the bandwidth those are kind of the

the three main stakeholders that i would say can can impact the amphibious shipbuilding process well unfortunately that's all the time that we have for today i'd like to thank our guest eric covey for coming aboard eric where can we find you online and what are you working on next sure uh so as far as where to find me online i'm on linkedin eric hovey and then also on twitter at eric underscore hovey and as far as what i'm working on next i'm actually getting ready to to pcs overseas pretty shortly excited for my next assignment which is to be the marine attache to liberia well thank you again for joining us to listeners thanks for tuning in we'll see you next time

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